Historic Hood River
Billy Sunday
Notes
Billy Sunday may have been Hood River’s most famous resident, but I’ve never been very clear on how long he owned the “Sunday Ranch” or how often he visited.
His Wikipedia page says
In 1909, the Sundays bought an apple orchard in Hood River, Oregon, where they vacationed for several years. Although the property sported only a rustic cabin, reporters called it a “ranch.”
Searching the pages of The Hood River Glacier, we see confirmation of his 1909 visit to purchase the ranch. We also see as late as 1927 he was still visiting his ranch and preaching at the local Asbury church.
According to The Oregon Encyclopedia, Billy and Ma Sunday owned the Odell ranch until his death in 1935. Ma Sunday sold it in 1937.
Here’s a nice image of the Sunday ranch in its heyday. It was really quite a modest home, but appears to have met the Sunday’s need for the occasional escape from the pressures of the tent and tabernacle circuit. It has been estimated Sunday preached to 100 million people, mostly in the years before electronic amplification, so it sounds like his brief vacations in Hood River were well-earned.
Kalley
The article about Billy Sunday said that at the age of 14, Billy left home and became acquainted with a man named John Scott. What a coincidence that a man named John Scott later would own the Billy Sunday Ranch. I remember that a lady named Sis Andresen bought some of John’s property across the road to put in a double wide trailer. On her property there was the outhouse of Billy’s. It was moved to a house on Odell Hwy.
L. E.
A photo of the Glenwood, Iowa institution where Billy Sunday may have spent some of his childhood. (no tag)
https://www.hoodriverhistorymuseum.org/not-a-european-vacation/
Perhaps Sunday knew the Laraway family since they also were from this town.
Sunday preached in White Salmon in 1915. I remember reading that the WS men’s baseball team tried to get him to umpire a game.
Jeffrey Bryant
One famous person that was born in Hood River is Cecil Andrus. He was Governor of Idaho and Secretary of the Department of the Interior under Jimmy Carter.
Terry J. Covington
My father, the late Eckard V. Toy, Jr., was an historian with deep ties to the Hood River Valley via my mother (Patricia Struck Toy), and to the NW in general. His article about Billy Sunday in the Oregon Encyclopedia may be of interest: https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/sunday_billy_1862_1935_/.